Tips to Improve the Mental Side of Shooting

Tips to Improve the Mental Side of Shooting

1. Feel Your Body and Trust Your Feelings

Top shooters have a feel for what a good shot is. They know the moment a shot leaves their hand if it is good or not.

2. Improve Your Shooters EQ

Basketball IQ is incredibly important in shooting. Shots are often made or missed before they are ever even taken. Shooters IQ is the instinctive ability to know how to get open for a shot, where and when to take a shot, what type of shot to take, and even when not to shoot.

Basketball EQ (Emotional Quotient) is a player’s ability to control emotions regardless of the changing circumstances (time and score – missed/made last three shot attempts, etc.) of a basketball game. EQ affects a player’s abilities to adjust on the fly and perform under pressure.

3. Actualization
Start doing. Stop practicing shooting. Start making shots. It doesn’t matter how many shots you take at practice. What matters is how many shots you actually make during practice.

4. Raise Your Level of Expectation

Make perfect shots. Make shots with your eyes closed. Play "all-net/eyes closed" shooting competitions in practice to develop your "feel" for making shots. Focus on the feel needed to make perfect shots from warm-up to cool down, and your practice effort will transfer into real game success.

5. Transference
Make better use of practice time. Get your practice time effort to transfer into real performance in real games.

The following tips are a sure way to help you bring your game to the next level! Good luck this season, and we'll see you this summer!